The SEC has been moving toward the use of interactive data in its disclosure program since February 2005. The commission already has launched initiatives to test the use of interactive data in periodic reports for corporations and in investment company reports.

Interactive data has the potential to enable individual investors to quickly search for particular items of information from financial reports–such as individual line items from the financial statements, text-based information including accounting policies or mutual fund expenses–and to easily compare them from company to company and industry to industry.

Interactive data also can allow automatic, real-time delivery of SEC financial data to anyone's desktop.

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